This invention relates to apparatus for producing a rough, flaky breading texture on fried chicken. Rough breading texture on fried chicken has thus far been obtained by tumbling battered and flour breaded chicken pieces in a drum. With flour as the breading agent, chicken pieces which are breaded in a rotating, baffled drum tumbler and are then fried and/or cooked, have a rough, flaky breading surface and a rough, crunchy breading texture. This type surface and texture is characteristic of the appetizing appearance and good eating quality of home fried chicken.
Associated with a drum tumbler, however, are large flour and batter losses in the form of unusable crumbs, which are a result of the disassociation of batter and flour from the chicken pieces during tumbling in the drum. Also because of the random arrangement of the breaded chicken pieces emerging from the tumbler, the chicken must be manually positioned on conveyors prior to frying or cooking so pieces are not bunched together and result in unfried or uncooked areas on the chicken. If a high production volume is required, it may be also necessary to spread the breaded chicken from the relatively narrow conveyors transporting the pieces out of the tumbler onto wider conveyors leading into the fryer or oven.
Also, according to the prior art, there are breading machines which perform the breading operation solely on straight conveyors in which the battered chicken pieces are placed on a layer of flour and are then covered by more flour so there are no exposed areas. The covered pieces may then be slightly compressed with flexible compression rollers in order to more intimately join the batter and the flour. The breaded chicken is then separated from the excess by allowing the flour to fall through wire or O-ring conveyors. The chicken is then fried or cooked and the excess flour is sifted and recycled into the breader. This breading operation using flat-bed conveyor units has less flour and batter losses, requires less manual piece handling, and is more controlled than the drum tumbler system, but does not produce a rough, flaky breading.